Italy
About Pisa
Pisa is a university town on the Arno, once a sea republic that rivalled Venice and Genoa, now known the world over for one tilted bell tower.
The tower stands on the Square of Miracles beside a white marble cathedral, a baptistery and a walled cemetery, a Romanesque ensemble and a UNESCO site. Away from it the town is calm and lived-in: arcaded streets, student bars, ochre palaces along the river and a huge Keith Haring mural.
Its airport is the main way into Tuscany, an hour from Florence and half an hour from walled Lucca, and sandy beaches start ten kilometres away.
Eat cecina, a thin chickpea flatbread, tucked into focaccia, and the bean and bread soups of the Tuscan countryside.
Get to Pisa
Round trip from Prague, any dates in November 2026.
Buses from Pisa
Day trips from Pisa
- Half day
Lucca
~30 min
A town still ringed by its Renaissance walls, with a tree-lined promenade on top to walk or cycle all the way round. Inside: an oval piazza built on a Roman amphitheatre, a tower with oak trees growing on its roof, and Puccini's birthplace.
→ in WayoniDay trip- Day trip
Volterra
~1 h 15 min
A walled hill town first built by the Etruscans, with an Etruscan gate, a Roman theatre, a medieval square of stone palaces and workshops still carving the local alabaster.
- Day trip
Cinque Terre
~1 h 30 minFive fishing villages of painted houses stacked on the cliffs of the Ligurian coast, a UNESCO site, linked by a local train and by footpaths through vineyards terraced above the sea.
About Italy
Backstreets, coastline and lunch
Etruscan hills, Baroque cities and volcanic islands, with the cooking changing every fifty kilometres and nobody rushing any of it.
Explore ItalyRegions, highlights and when to go